A Downloader's Diary (12): July 2011

by Michael Tatum

The twelfth Downloader's Diary -- yes, it's been almost a year
since I started this little obsession -- is dedicated, in the spirit
of Independence Day, to rebels and oddballs, or at least, rebels and
oddballs in the context of this column. We have two electronica guys,
one who digs sitars, another who specializes in pre-war 78s. We have
two punk records, one you need a lyric sheet to decipher, another
that's supposedly in English, yet I can't understand a word. We have,
in what must be a first around these parts, a Tony-winning musical.
And we have the number one album in the country. No, not Bon Iver --
Justin Vernon is sitting mopily at number two. We'll get to him next
month.

Sorry Bamba: Volume One 1970-1979 (Thrill Jockey) As
a nobleman's son, future bandleading guitarist Sorry Bamba was
forbidden to play music, a state of affairs that changed when -- gotta
love that caste system -- he was orphaned at the age of ten. At
around the same time, Mali declared independence from France, and as
we have seen in the "emancipation" of other African countries (from
foreign rule, anyway) from Nigeria to Congo, that rush of liberation,
coupled with the excitement to modernize, can make for exciting music.
It must have helped that Bamba's hometown of Mopti (from the Fulfulde
word for "gathering"), often referred to as "the Venice of Mali," sits
at the confluence of the Niger and Bani rivers, actually spreading
itself across three dyke-linked islands: like most towns linked to
waterways, a natural hotbed of cross-cultural excitement, that in this
case eight distinct ethnic groups (including Tuareg, Songhai, and
Moor) call home. It's gratifying to hear Mali's familiar musical
signatures (minor keys, modal scales, circular rhythms) in the context
of classic big band Afropop, and while I might have warned Bamba off
those embarrassingly garish psychedelia touches in the otherwise
serviceable jam "Sayouwe," quaint little bits like that muted trumpet
at the beginning of "Aïssé" more than compensate. My favorite moment
though, comes at the end of the lithe "Astan Kelly," when Bamba pivots
off two very strange, dissonant chords for a good fifteen seconds,
before resolving them in the melodic way you would expect. Every time
I hear it, I wonder: was that a mistake that he ran with and left in
because it sounded so cool? Or was it a tension-release game planned
entirely in advance? I say it's a moot point -- either scenario stands
as proof of a keen musical mind at work. A

The Book of Mormon: Original Broadway Cast Recording
(Ghostlight) Aside from the fact I'm a fan of his long-running
Comedy Central cash cow, Trey Parker and I have a little bit in
common. First, we're both piano-playing veterans of high school
theatre. Second, we both dated, with disastrous results, a Mormon
girl. This makes me primed to appreciate his Tony-winning
collaboration with South Park cohort Matt Stone and kindred
spirit Robert Lopez, the mastermind behind the uproarious Sesame
Street tribute/parody Avenue Q. In a nutshell, the plot
follows two Mormon elders -- idealistic but completely naïve Kevin
Price and buffoonish but ultimately endearing Arnold Cunningham --
serving a two year mission in Uganda, about which they know little
other than it being the setting for The Lion King, whose
soundtrack gets outrageously mocked in the hysterically blasphemous
"Hasa Diga Eebowai." When the Ugandan townspeople jeer Price for his
pomposity and inability to connect his faith to their cruel day-to-day
reality, Cunningham, who knows even less about Mormonism than he does
about Africa, improvises -- with creative inspiration siphoned from
J.R.R. Tolkien and George Lucas -- his own (even more) ridiculous
version of the gospel, eventually winning the townspeople over. Terry
Teachout complained in the Wall Street Journal that the
production was "flabby, amateurish and very, very safe," and I suppose
none of these undeniably catchy, sometimes poignant, always funny
songs will ever find their way into the Great American Songbook. But I
defy you to find another Broadway show in which black and white actors
share the same stage in equal numbers, or one in which in an
interracial relationship isn't presented as a hurdle of controversy
that less enlightened straw men have to jump, but merely as a simple
attraction between two people. Especially given the Mormon Church's
crusade against gay marriage in California, I get a special kick out
of "Two By Two," in which an army of clearly gay chorus boys joyously
sing about getting partnered up for their missions. And though you may
find the moral -- that it's healthy to accept religion as a pliable
metaphor rather than staunchly defend it as a literal truth -- old
hat, given that a large majority of Americans, Mormon and otherwise,
oppose that concept to the point of controlling what gets taught in
schools and how much money goes to women's health clinics, I say it's
a moral worth celebrating. A

The Caretaker: An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History
Always Favours the Winners) When I was eighteen, on a somewhat
ill-advised crusade to generate funds for my Senior Prom, I played a
"piano bar" set for several old age homes, comprised mostly of --
because I was neither sophisticated enough to know, nor empathetic
enough to learn, the Tin Pan Alley classics -- Beatle ballads and a
few assorted pre-rock oddities. My third outing was at a convalescent
home. After cheerfully warbling two quick rounds of "By the Light of
the Silvery Moon," I stopped to shuffle my sheet music. As I did, a
woman in a wheelchair, her head cocked to one side, continued to sing
along as she stared into space blankly -- and she wouldn't stop.
Although now I know I reached her in a positive way, at the time, it
shook me up -- and has haunted me ever since. That may be why I
connect to this record, in which Leyland John Kirby loops,
manipulates, and strings together various quaint, pre-war 78s of
schmaltzy parlor ballads into a suite that mirrors his own interest in
Alzheimer patients' reactions to old music. In each piece, his
strategy changes. In the opening "All You Are Going to Want to Do Is
Get Back There," the seams are so imperceptible you can't tell where
the loop begins or ends, but on the next cut, he repeats a haunting
forty-second snatch of piano and separates them with a brief pause in
which you can hear a needle audibly skipping its way into the scratchy
groove. Later, the loops become shorter, more fragmented; motifs
repeat only to be subverted. In one track, the sound swings from the
left to the right stereo channel, like the pendulum in an antique
grandfather clock. And in the peak -- if an album as staid as this
can be said to peak -- two piano chords repeat nobly for three full
minutes: memory persisting in the face of unforgiving time. The music
is so compelling, eerie even as it comforts, that I would like to
share it with my grandmothers. Unfortunately, one has deteriorated to
the point where she tells the same handful of stories every time I see
her. The other hasn't known my name for three years. A

Cults: Cults (In the Name Of/Columbia) The long held
convention about agoraphobic producers like Brian Wilson and Phil
Spector is that they spent hours upon hours in the studio because they
wanted to create an inner world to insulate themselves from the big,
bad world outside. But how -- aside from providing backing vocals or
belting lyrics drafted by Gerry Goffin or Jeff Barry -- do the objects
of their affection fit into the equation? Here, this Brooklyn duo
answer that question with a sparkling debut on Lily Allen's
Sony-distributed imprint, a thinly-disguised concept album in which
guitarist Ryan Mattos (who bills himself as "Brian Oblivion") traps
indie cutie Madeline Follin in the Tower of Song, from which she wails
trapped underneath a latticework of reverb. After getting "Abducted"
in the briskly-paced opener ("I knew right then that I'd never love
her," Mattos confesses), Follin smacks down Jim Jones' spiked cup of
Flavor-Aid ("To me, death is not a fearful thing," his ghost murmurs
on Mattos' behalf, "it's living that's treacherous") and chastises his
anti-social tendencies: "You really want to hole up/You really want to
stay inside and sleep the light away." Separated from her family and
stuck with a "new crowd" she's not sure she likes, she complains about
plans being made for her even as she voices insecurity about moving on
and starting a life with "someone new," playfully putting her foot
down at the denouement of "Never Heal Myself": "I can never be
myself/So fuck you." Mattos remains undeterred, constructing a
post-Brill Building pop mélange so dense its musical weight is almost
palpable, which is perhaps why it takes even melodies as sturdy as
these so long to sink in. On the final track, Follin elects to "Rave
On," and considering these guys will be hitbound if and when Mattos
loosens up his hold on the music a little, that's probably a good
career move. So why does Follin sound so resigned to her fate when she
sings it? A

Fucked Up: David Comes to Life (Matador) Who is the
real-life David Eliade, whose "inspiring story" is the ostensible
subject of this eighty minute post-hardcore meta-opera? The
(suspiciously citation-free) explanation on this Montreal sextet's
Wikipedia page reveals little: "Eliade is the 'fifth Beatle,' and
manages Fucked Up from behind the scenes . . . He is
the only person involved with the band who knows how to tune a
guitar. Unfortunately he has never attended one of Fucked Up's live
shows . . ." So let's say he's a composite of every
proletariat clock-punching Everyslacker these guys know, or perhaps an
autobiographical doppelganger for resident yowler Damian Abraham. I'm
slightly skeptical about Abraham's much-ballyhooed literary
credentials -- even after several listenings I've yet to piece together
any coherent storyline here, let alone find evidence of the thwarted
terrorist plot (!!!) Larry Fitzmaurice adduces in his Pitchfork
review, although the unreliable narrator motif (a classic meta-fiction
staple) is a nice touch. Truthfully, I'd rather know why doomed
inamorata Veronica's last name is the French word for "drink," or why
Veronica shares her initials with David's ex-girlfriend Vivian, or if
David himself has any relevant symbolic connection to theology
professor and fascist sympathizer Mircea Eliade. But I'll leave those
discussions for the college dissertations most likely already in the
works. For most of us, the real draw here will be the explosive
synergy between Abraham's searing vocals and the almost symphonic
grandeur of the band, led by guitarist/composer Mike Haliechuk.
Without Abraham, Haliechuk's music -- much cleaner/sharper than Hüsker
Dü, to whom this record is often compared -- would be hypercharged AOR,
anthems with context. And without the melodic weight of the music,
Abraham would be one more howler in the post-hardcore vacuum. Fused
together and burning brightly as a single glorious incandescence,
they're one more reason why true literary types have been putting down
their summer reading for rock and roll since Chuck Berry gave up
cosmetology for Maybellene and Johnny B. Goode. A

Gold Panda: Companion (Ghostly International) Fans of
the London-based laptop wizard probably don't need this digital-only
item, which cobbles together three self-released 2009 EPs, adding on
one negligible new track, but like most juvenilia, it provides useful
insight into the artiste's creative process. It begins with what I
call his greatest hit, the two minute quickie "Quitter's Raga," which
niftily establishes his modus operandi: choppy snippets of
melody tactically laid on top of solid, rhythmic bedrock. A handful of
sitar samples aside, this relies less on flights of exotica than
Panda's true debut, the excellent Lucky Shiner, which also
means that it's less unified as a whole. On the other hand,
compilations like this often give us a chance to pull off the face of
that finely tuned clock to examine the wiring inside: for example, I
love how the fuzzy surface noise underneath the keyboard hook of "Like
Totally" becomes a hook in itself, or how that lowly, intentionally
flatted synth flute sadly drags its feet through the moping new age
parody "Lonely Owl." I could do with a little more however of tracks
like "Win-san Western," in which a toy piano figure races across a
stuttering breakbeat. Fast tempos: never underestimate them.
B+

Iceage: New Brigade (What's Your Rupture?) While I'd
be the first admit that I play the punk card in front of my ex-hippie
parents as a means to set myself apart from them spiritually, in truth
I reject most of the lo-fi, no-wave bands that come my way as
unlistenable, tuneless caterwaul. The tuneless caterwaul proffered by
this Danish quartet however, not a one of them out of their teens, is
something special. Damned if I could tell you quite why -- usually
when a band like this breaks out of the no-wave pack, their success is
attributable to a talent for burying melodies in noise, or a penchant
for foregrounding memorably clever lyrics delivered as football
chants. You know -- songwriting. The strategy here is more like
marshaling cohesion from chaos, and making it compel. Though the
lyrics are reputedly in English, I can only understand a few snatches
here and there, and Elias Bender Ronnenfelt's thuggish baritone isn't
exactly what you'd call an instrument of great range, emotion, or
feeling. But from the tribal thumping of Dan Kjaer Nielsen to the
efficient thrashing of Ronnenfelt and second guitarist Johan Surballe
Wieth, these upstarts showcase in twelve "songs" in twenty-four
minutes their version of post-punk slash and burn, which essentially
boils down to napalming the cornfield while they celebrate its
destruction by joyously ransacking the farmhouse. Fierce, unrelenting,
and startlingly vital from start to finish, you won't be quite sure
what's hit you when it's all through. After which you'll have no
problem shuttling yourself through their maelstrom one more
time. A

Jill Scott: The Light of the Sun (Blues Babe/Warner
Bros.) Scott has plenty of reasons to feel "Blessed," some of
which she lists in that opening song (her parents, her son, last
night's restorative sleep) and some of which she doesn't, namely her
split from Hidden Beach Recordings, which has freed her to craft her
sassiest, sexiest record, quite possibly the best neo-soul record
since Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun -- she deserves her first
Billboard number one. Suffice to say, if you've ever found Scott's
records, even 2007's fine The Real Thing, a little too
dependent on texture and flow, there will be no problem waiting for
the songs to kick in. Part of its success can be chalked up the band,
including guitarist Randy Bowland and bassist Adam Blackstone, who
improvised backing tracks for Scott to use when she came into the
studio without any pre-prepared material. But really this album is
where Scott really opens up as a performer and as a singer -- compare
the cover of The Real Thing (sweater-clad ingénue, chunky purse
slung over her shoulder, looking like she's planning to take you
shopping for sheets at Bed, Bath, and Beyond) to the pose she strikes
here (slimmed down, sexed up, leaning with attitude against a classic
car): who would you rather spend some time with? At first, I
was a little surprised by two tracks in which she tells that new guy
that they should put off sex till next time -- they seemed so out of
character -- until I found out former lover and ex-drummer John
Roberts broke up with her a few months after their baby was born. But
with a little help from Eve, Doug E. Fresh, Anthony Hamilton, and
others, elsewhere she gets gratifyingly loose and even a little
dirty. In a nine minute "vent suite," she drops "the boom" on a guy
who won't call her back, telling him off by revealing "somebody else
has been sniffing my dress." Later, she delivers a "Womanifesto" that
declares, "I'm more than just my ass," which leads to this brazen
boast: "There's power in them rolling hills." Do tell Jill, do
tell. A

Honorable Mentions

The Tedeschi Trucks Band: Revelator (Sony
Masterworks) Yes, but Delaney and Bonnie sought out great songs
when they knew they couldn't write them ("Come See About Me," "Until
You Remember," "Midnight in Harlem") ***

Neil Young and the International Harvesters: A Treasure
(Reprise) "Leftin' then a-rightin'/It's not a crime, you know"
("Grey Riders," "Southern Pacific," "Are You Ready For the Country?")
***
[Later: A-]

Tinie Tempah: Disc-overy (Capitol) Admitting that the
underground makes him feel "out of place," he breaks into the UK
mainstream riding what could be a new subgenre: arena grime ("Pass
Out," "Miami 2 Ibiza") **

The Wave Pictures: Beer in the Breakers (Moshi Moshi)
Dave Tattersall would be one more literate British post-punk popper,
except as a guitarist he counts surf, flamenco, and soukous among his
influences ("Little Surprise," "Blue Harbour") **

Trash

Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes (Atlantic) I admire that
this Swedish export (real name: Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson) nurtures
a fondness for updating sixties pop forms -- "99 Tears" here, "Be My
Baby" there -- but her flat, affectless alto, fenced in by a meager
range of about six notes, fails the memory of Ronnie Spector: witness
the high note she flubs on "Sadness is a Blessing," the vaguely
countrypolitan one in which she makes Zooey Deschanel sound like Patsy
Cline, her questionable harmonizing technique throughout. It doesn't
help that the expected post-adolescent relationship themes are dogged
by some flimsy (and confusing) high school versifying: "Rather live
out a lie than live wondering how the fire feels while burning/For
life is like a flame and the ashes for wasting" -- wha? Believe it or
not, the two major exceptions make their presence felt, of all things,
rhythm first: the sardonically self-explanatory "Rich Kid's Blues" and
-- especially -- the prickly ironic prick-tease "Get Some." Not because
of that "I'm your prostitute" nonsense, though -- more because of that
galvanic Bo Diddley beat. A few more of those and she might have
gotten away with a lot more. B

Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Belong (Slumberland)
Without abandoning the adolescent frustrations of their '80s Brit-Pop
exemplars -- who after all knew what side their bread was buttered on
-- the lyrics forsake the acutely observed details of their 2009 debut
for a more generalized approach: compare the debut's opener
"Contender," which quickly but effectively sketches a failed bohemian
who gives up "books for film," then "film for time," to this record's
title cut, which rues a love won and lost (in the only couplet worth
quoting) "in hospitals and shopping malls/with heavy heads on locker
walls." Especially with Flood and Alan Moulder beefing up their
guitar sound, this would suggest they've got their sights set on the
big time, and if they had come up with a few more tunes as catchy as
the first three or four here -- with a special mention for the
siren-song of a guitar hook on "Heaven's Gonna Happen Now" -- they
might have taken this to the next level. But the tempos -- both a
little slower and more stately than on the debut -- frame a guitar
sound that's attractively fuzzy on first blush, but on repeated
listenings reveals itself to be as thin as tissue paper, even with the
addition of second guitarist Christopher Hochheim, who helps them
ratchet up the volume but not architect a distinct aesthetic. This calls
into question their sincerity: in song they can declare fealty to the
object of their affection "even in dreams" because it's so much easier
than committing to the reality of adulthood, but in reality these
twenty-somethings should be long past the age of wondering "what the
body's for." Does Kip Berman really require that girl to rock
fishnets and leather for a night on the town, or still refer to the
posters on his wall as "his only friends?" If he was fifteen I might
entertain how painful life can be for the "pure of heart" -- but once
you start pushing a certain age, unless you start cracking some jokes
on the side, I'm going to start questioning how pure your intentions
really are. B

Tyler, the Creator: Goblin (XL) I'm a little
surprised that neither the pop music critics at GLAAD nor the hip hop
historians at Fox News have come clean about the most offensive aspect
of this notorious little item, which isn't lyrical, but rather
musical: Tyler has to be endowed with the least demonstrative set of
pipes of any rapper to grab headlines, and the pleasureless, mostly
deconstructed backing tracks make sorting this out a chore for anyone
not willing to dismiss him outright -- you know, to "listen" to
him. He resents the "horrorcore" tag because he doesn't want to be put
in a "box" -- fine. But if he thinks that there's more to his shock
tactics than offending the easily offended, what could that possibly
be? As his therapist alter ego quickly learns in the title track --
and the impenetrability of the music reinforces -- he spurns
self-analysis, something you can't say about Tyler's hero Eminem, who
early on let Dr. Dre voice the conscience that Tyler offs in the
climax of "Yonkers," which with its Bernard Hermann cum RZA synth
stabs sure sounds like horrorcore to me. And the dearth of
self-analysis is the reason that Tyler's smarter detractors have no
problem putting him into that box -- for example, he never once
realizes that his liberal (small 'l' please) use of the word "faggot"
throughout is his way of dismissing in others the emotional closeness
he never got from his absentee father, or that the stalker tendencies
(fictional, I'm sure) detailed in the painful "Her" constitute his way
of simulating intimacy without actually leaving himself vulnerable to
it. And you don't know how many times I actually had to listen
to the record to get to the bottom of this. Please don't make me do it
again. C

Airborne Toxic Event: All at Once (Island)

Crystal Stilts: In Love With Oblivion (Slumberland)

Dirty Beaches: Badlands (Zoo Music)

Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams (Reprise)

Ty Segall: Goodbye Bread (Drag City)

Sloan: The Double Cross (Yep Roc)

True Widow: As High as the Highest Heavens and From the
Center to the Circumference of the Earth (Kemado)